Posted
by
simonikeron Friday December 12, 2003 @08:14AM
from the eye-of-sauron-upon-us dept.

rh2600 writes "The New Zealand censors have banned Rockstar Games' controversial stealth action PlayStation 2 game Manhunt, making it the 'first [ever] video game banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.' The New Zealand Herald has a story about it, including some pretty interesting comments from a usually liberal Censor's Office: 'Unlike the Grand Theft Auto series, which... had an element of humor in its depiction of police chases, Manhunt has none of that whatsoever.'" The censor concludes by saying: "You have to at least acquiesce in these [in-game] murders and possibly tolerate, or even move towards enjoying them, which is injurious to the public good."

I haven't played Manhunt so I don't know if the ESRB should have rated it Adults Only. I'm sure it deserved the Mature label at least, which it got.

I have played it. AO or M is a tough call. The ESRB said M, others say AO should have been given. But due to some of the violence, I say it really is tough to call.

The thing is, it all depends on how you kill the people that determines how graphic the scene is. The longer you hold the button, the more graphic the scene (a target indicator goes from gray, to green, to yellow, to red; with each successive color more violent and graphic than the last). Using a glass shard, for example, and going all the way to red has you stab the guy in the throat, then gauge out his eyes with the piece of glass, which is pretty violent and graphic in my book.

All in all, though, Manhunt just isn't a fun game. The game gets repetetive early on (and stays that way), has in incredibly boring pace, and has some major issues when it comes to collision detection, the use of sound as something that gives you away (press the attack button before your stance changes, and your fist(?!?)/weapon makes a really loud whoosh which alerts enemies to your presence), and AI intelligence. Honestly, the only two reasons it will sell are because Rockstar made it, and it is incredibly violent. Although I hear it does some neat things with the USB headsets, such as allowing you to scream into it and scare the 'hunters' if they're near you.